


some clever engaging title (it's honestly just sad crap)

by still_emo



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-14 00:52:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9149437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_emo/pseuds/still_emo
Summary: Right so this has been in my notes for kind of a wile and I'm flushing out stuff that makes me sad not that this does just I wrote it when I was sad. Not really sure what else to say I suppose it's a short Bruce banner character study with some venting from me and like I'm about to copy paste it and idk how it ends anymore so yeah take a look.





	

It used to happen naturally, as far as anything happening in Bruce's life can be considered natural. Coming back to himself was only part of the experience, mostly shrouded in adrenaline and the effort to survive the trip back. It always hurt but it didn't always feel so clean and it hardly ever left him feeling so for lack of a better word, purified. The words of course are wrong and bordering on idiotic but these words aren't referring to his state of being scraped up covered in dirt and grime bent over a tree puking. No this is his state of being his way of keeping a sense of self afterwards, yoga and meditation can take you surprisingly far but not all the way. Not without adding something tangible. 

The first time afterwards feels the kind of clean tired that makes you wanna shower then sleep on the bathroom floor. Probably brush your teeth too. He was alone as the thing under the bed skirting along the edge of sleep. Coming back had been how it usually was painful but the pain seemed justified to his fuzzy half blacking out brain. The moment he was vaguely officially back he noted two things, if he thought he had the strength or equipment to lobotomise himself he'd do it and second he is going to throw up. 

After it happens he figured he'd dull and let the after party of fading in awake and unconscious take him away from here. But it doesn't, his senses getting a kind of semi automatic sharpness steadies him. 

He's still a doctor he could name every fuck up the brain can throw at you and then keep talking. But he also knows feeling like you're not gonna hurt anyone because you're too tired is invaluable. He glances at himself in dirty mirrors wile he's scrubbing up and decides, definitely atypical. 

He goes years without changing again, he helps people the logical pieces of him say it was an endorphin fuelled mistake, like after so much intense pain any sensation which didn't hurt would have felt good. Or at least, felt better. He couldn't monitor anything anyway the equipment is basic at best done with fighting for feeling better he goes for maybe doing better. And for the longest time he's felt like a person since it happened he feels like it's almost working. 

And then almost like daybreak she's got the house surrounded and fuck she's so beautiful. She's fierce and sharp and she points useless guns at him somehow non threatening yet at the same time frightening. Can't push the self defence instincts too far from home he guesses. He wonders if she's scared under the iron clad bravado. 

He agrees without too much promoting to go with her, and his world goes from this isn't sanitary but if I could just- to I'm afraid to touch the trim of this car because it's so shiny and if you shout at me for smudging it I can't say I wouldn't kill everyone in this car. I wouldn't want to. 

It's quiet for a moment after that there's car rides and introductions and he doesn't feel trapped even though he probably is and he doesn't feel threatened even though he definitely is. 

As a part of the zoo licensing act you have to be able to kill whatever you have captive. On the off chance that if it escapes you move before before it does any damage. Any more damage. 

Then again the change wasn't absolute it just felt that way he's fuzzed up again like his brain won't let him sleep but it scares him, sleep deprived, kind of scared. He feels dangerous like he's losing his grip. He'd have jumped if that was true he tells himself. But people here call him doctor banner and only around 60% speak to him like they're scared. Then there's the upper circle, the superheroes God he had friends who loved captain America as a kid and he's sat there almost tense almost frightened just an orchestrated politeness like it's an act he's been perfecting for decades, he figures that's possible given the studies on coma patients retaining some kind of awareness throughout. He thinks about the paper about the guy who wrote it. He wonders if it was a peak for them all as the good captain is making conversation about how coffee changed since the 40's. He almost wants to apologise but can't for the life of him find the words. 

So bright it stings his eyes makes him dizzy. Fuck he's incredible he's warm and bright and effortlessly drags him back to himself into conversation seems to take to him and for fuck sake it's not even just him it's every part all his monsters and his demons like it's easy. He's taken from the room, from all the executives and the good captain. Thrown into a lab not even a cage within a lab behind a desk a screen. Everything's made of glass so he looks at Tony. And Tony grins at him running through a mentally stored catalogue of all the toys they keep in this one. That's when he realises far far away from himself he couldn't hurt Tony. It makes his chest feel like it's full of warm water and immediately he talks himself down checking this breathing wondering if he can check his pulse without scaring Tony God he can only imagine how this entire building would shatter around him, how he'd destroy all the shiny new toys that made Tony so happy. 

Then Tony stabs him with a pencil 

He's turning into the jolt of pain and Tony is there looking into his eyes. And fucking hell he needs to protect this child all dressed up like a grown up. "You really have a lid on it don't you" and there's a pause like he's willing himself to say looks that way doesn't it or fuck no or I have to go. Then Tony's off again whirring around like there's no reason he'd ever need to stop because of Bruce. 

He realised he didn't answer kind of too late and to his relief Tony didn't seem to notice. The captain visits them later on and then as quickly as he'd settled into this company the room changed suddenly there's movement and noise and too many people in one room too much breathing too many heart beats two, no three erratic one slightly fast (caffeine(Tony). He reads the room like an open book with bright green stripes over the important parts, the entire room knows, more than half the room is scared. He supposes they should be but pushes the thought deep down away from the florescent tube lighting and the hot tempered bickering. He felt the peace of the room shatter under his hands and he left apology folded up behind his tongue when what escaped his mouth was rage. 

He found himself thinking of trees and acid murky browns and yellows and greens trickling dirty hot and wet into the rubble. 

They told him, no she told him soft and sweet and so very very small she said that there were forces beyond his self control trying to use him, control his alter and use it like a battering ram. 

He couldn't find it within himself to be surprised his alter was strong and fast if uncontrollable, Thor once called him a busurker and reading into it he was right and wrong, true besurkers believed in something they believed if it was their day to die no force on heaven or earth could stop it. Also they fought naked. 

 

He gravitated towards the lab Tony first led him too, he'd been the first to speak with him rather than to him and also he first person to be near to him voluntarily when they specifically didn't need anything from him. He figures at first Tony was here to play superheroes or get in on some big merger or something equally benign but iorn man, Tony Stark and tony were three separate ideas entirely. 

Iorn man is where Tony keeps his good intentions, the pure spirit he hides under sarcasm faux narcissism and a petulance matched only by toddlers and cats. 

Tony Stark is the business man the smooth as silk billionaire playboy visage used semi constantly when out of red/gold armour. It's Tony Stark who seeks validation from strangers in the same way 

tony grew up too fast and hates the taste of even really good scotch and can't remember the last time someone stayed the night or even hugged him anything more than a greeting or for a camera. 

Bruce favours the softness of tony and supposes he's only met that person a handful of times, and even then in only fleeting moments and gratuitous displays of outlandish affection which last a moment or two longer than they strictly need to when Bruce assumes he's overtired or under the influence. 

There's a call to arms like he's never heard in his life and the first people to speak his native tongue in years ask him for to use his alter to wield that strength and power and rage like a sword rather than a firework. Flamethrower rather than a bomb fire. He thinks of words for weapons and lines them up with what he's done. He looks at his hands when the bike is moving and he thinks about Tony's how he made weapons how his own hands brought so much death so much destruction. He wonders if Tony knows what that's like

He arrives and they stand together like they're not winning but they're not backing down either. Like they're willing to die fighting. Bruce knows he won't be offered same privilege. 

Tony's there and he's perfect like the moment they met, polished and shimmering in the light, Bruce knows damn well you could bounce quarters off captain Americas ass that doesn't have shit on Tony. All of Tony. 

He leans into it slow and gentle like he's falling into a mediative state backwards letting rage pour in pour through his veins until his nice shirt is in shreds. 

When he crushes a space ship into a road he doesn't see it, when he pulls the exoskeleton encased arm off of one alien and uses it to beat another to death he doesn't see it. 

He sees Tony poking his bruises and wonders how many of them were presents from his alter he sees fear in her eyes and he says nothing. 

The group assemble themselves later on around a table and Bruce feels all faux biblical plastic religion like those cheap neon plastic prayer beads or canvas prints of a white man with a beard captioned Jesus our Lord. He feels like Judah, he feels worse than Judah.

Tony talks him back and he's so warm so comfortable after he saw everything, Bruce supposes he's a scientist too the engineer in him must realise now what he's dealing with how to build a box what to look out for what signs to keep tabs on how to make Bruce banner his reverse engineering project of the summer. 

He agrees, no one else he's met has the money or intelligence to build something capable of containing him, protecting people from him. 

When he and Tony arrive he's led not to a holding cell or a cage or a reinforced monitoring chamber but a bedroom, a very expensive looking bedroom, the bed is huge and plush the adjoining bathroom is stocked and he accidentally introduces himself to Jarvis speaking out loud about running water and fading adrenaline.

Acid knocks his door but there's no one home there's no answer and he feels bitterness seep through his bones through the porcelain. Instead he showers, brushes his teeth and sets to finding the good captain he doesn't want to see and ask how he can help even though he'd rather be passed out in a pile of rubble.


End file.
